5. Lilya 4-ever (2002)
Following the life of Lilya in a squalid run down town in a grim ex Soviet state. She thinks she is going to America with her mother to live with the latter's boyfriend. Unfortunately she is dumped into her uncaring Aunt's guardianship. Her aunt moves into Lilja's flat and forces her to live in her very rundown old one instead. Lilya's friend suggests she take up prostitution but she doesn't agree to it. However a set of circumstances end up with Lilya's innocent reputation being smeared with whoredom at school and at home. She is a total outcast and now she really does have to prostitute herself. The only glimmer of light in her life is a fellow lost soul Volodya, a young boy abused by his alcoholic family. Lilya buys Volodya a basketball from her earnings as a prostitute. She meets a man called Andrei who promises her a nice life in Sweden. When she gets there she is brutalised by a pimp and kept hostage as a prostitute to service several men a day. Meanwhile back home Volodya commits suicide. He appears to Lilya in angel form. She escapes but is captured and beaten. She escapes again and much to the horror of Volodya, who regrets having taken his own life, she throws herself off a motorway bridge. There are two conclusions - in the first one Lilya and Volodya are seen as angels playing basketball in a court and no one can hurt them. In the second conclusion Lilya goes back in time and refuses Andrei's offer to go to Sweden and presumably has a happy life with Volodya. The depressing aspect of the film is that it is social realism. Hideous ex Soviet towns where girls like Lilya are impoverished and do not have the best of prospects really exist. Girls lured into a promise of a new life do get sold into the white slavery rings. Indeed, the film is so realistic, it has been shown by several humanitarian organisations in information campaigns against human trafficking in various Eastern European countries. It is a wonderful film by Lukas Moodysson which captures the gritty and bleak hopelessness of the ex-Soviet states. It made me glad to be from a Western nation. You will feel like a blessed millionaire living in the greatest country on earth after you watch this film.